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Parker Valiant
Parker Valiant [he/him] is the son of Sir Percival, an iconic knight in the Arthurian Legends associated with retrieving the Holy Grail. A new arrival to Ever After High, Parker had been homeschooled for his whole life by his mother, and had never ventured outside the Welsh forest in which he called home. Because of this, he's very excited about the prospect of destiny and looks up to his fellow Knights very highly. Character Personality Parker hasn’t been at Ever After High long. He’s fresh out of Welsh woods, and barely knew what a knight or a sword or a horse was before. As the next Sir Percival, Parker embodies all the qualities that a Sir Percival is meant to have: the innocence, the determination, and the piety. He even has the convoluted backstory. He’s still working on developing his personality and working out what he actually likes or does. Being a woodsland farmboy is not too diverse of a life, and he’s barely talked to any human outside of his own mother. Growing up among birds and trees and not having much of a grasp on civilisation is a little difficult for the boy. Because of that, Parker adores people. He thinks other people are the coolest things ever, and he sort of knows how humankind kind of works (from all the heavily-censored books his mother would bring home to him). He wants to know more, he wants to make friends, and thinks that everyone who he has met at Ever After High has something fascinating or interesting to share to him. Even the most plain of “fun facts” “I have three brothers and a cat” amazes him, since people have lived lives so different from his own. However, due to his naivety and inexperience, he can be''' easily led astray''' by people he trusts. So swept up in meeting cool people, Parker fails to realise that just because someone is cool or interesting, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re good. Without a solid support network that helps him develop ethics and morals, Parker is easily lost. Since he’s new to Ever After High, but also most of modern civilisation, Parker is really really determined to do his best. Percival, as a role, is an honour. He’s thrilled to learn that he will be one of the most pious knights of the Round Table! Because of that, he sort of overpensates, always volunteering to help out and be of use and do something, and not be that useless new knight. Overall, he’s just incredibly soft and getting used to things. Parker is here to make his mother proud, and the people he shares his destiny with, too. Appearance Parker is a black youth, with deep brown skin and dark poofy brown hair, which he often weaves flowers into. His eyes are a soft green. He is tall and well-built, after years of tending to his mother’s forest home and farm, and being an adept gardener. Interests, Hobbies & Skills Gardening Back home, Parker would always tend to his garden, being adept with spades and the seasons and loved it when his mother would bring home almanacs for him to read and study. To him, it was very satisfying to see the fruits of his labours, and he regards gardening as another means of respecting the earth. At Ever After High, he volunteers at local community gardens, wanting to carry his hobby over. Parks, Rangering, Hiking, Etc Not wishing to be too homesick, Parker takes frequent hikes in the Enchanted Forest, and wants to be registered as a proper ranger. The species at Ever After High are so different to the ones he knows, and he's working intently on learning them. Environmental Action As he was not hexposed to modern civilisation much, seeing environmental destruction first hand hit Parker hard. He knew of it happening -- from whatever material his mother brought home, but didn't realise it could be so bad, with poison magic toxins leaking into water ways, or the destruction of fae homes... Parker feels lost and small and doesn't know what to do, but he helps out in whatever ways he can. Knights!!! Parker loves his story! He loves the people in it that he's met! And he has had no clue of what and who knights are or were before coming to Ever After High, so it's all new to him and he's doing whatever he can to catch up. He's learning very fast. I support him. Other Nothing yet! Mythology: Arthurian Legend Sir Percival To keep it short and sweet, because there's a lot to go through in Arthurian Legend, Parker will be following Mallory's Morte D'Arthur, and its interpretation Sir Perceval. How does Parker come into this? *To distinguish between the Arthurian character Perceval and the Percival of the previous generation, I’ll use the ‘e’ spelling for the former and the ‘i’ spelling for the latter in this case. The Sir Percival of the previous generation had initially resolved to follow an earlier variant of his tale, where he married his sweetheart, the Blanchefleur is his generation. He did so, and sired several kids - three sons and a daughter. In addition to that, he was granted kingship of Corbenic, after healing the Fisher King. He hexpected happiness. He hexpected peace. But despite following what seemed like a more stable, happy path, Sir Percival felt like something was off. This was not the peace he wanted. Because of this, he had a bit of a religious revelation, and recalled the later legends - the ones people thought he would follow. In those legends, Sir Perceval maintained his virginity and went into monk-hood. Despite having strayed from that path, Sir Percival wished to return to it. He sent his older two sons off to some academy to study knighthood, and his only daughter off to a convert or a nunnery. His youngest son, however, he left behind with his wife, with the desire that this son would be raised as the next Perceval. His two elder sons went on to serve as knights. One was killed by the then-Lancelot, while he was defending the execution of the then-Guinevere, and the other perished in a war against the Romans. Neither of them attended Ever After High, studying in a specialised school for (more minor) Arthurian knights. Both of them died not long after their graduation. Meanwhile, his daughter made her escape from the nunnery, running off to live with her uncle, a hermit. She briefly toyed with the idea of attending Ever After High, but wanted to get to her role as the next grail maiden (also known as Dindrane, in some legends), and applied as soon as possible for a position at the Castle of Maidens. She lives there now. Percival stayed in the monastery all his following days, writing and recounting his past days of glory. He found peace with himself, even if he did have to lose his family. As for his youngest son? Well, that would be Parker. Parker's mother realised exactly what happened when she was left alone with Parker. He was to be raised in the same way every Perceval before was raised. Alone, in the woods, by his single mother, clueless to chivalry and knightship, oblivious to what a sword or a horse was. That was precisely what she did. It would be her only legacy to the man who she once loved. Except, with the Storybook dissolved and fairytales still persisting, albeit earlier (as seen by Darling’s kiss and Daring’s curse), destiny pushes on. Knights pass by the woods that Parker lives, and he mistakes them, as Percevals do, for angels. And they realise that they must take him, not to King Arthur, but to the land of Ever After. Sir Percevals don’t generally attend Ever After High. The destiny itself is built on being utterly clueless and separate from anything knightly, and they are expected to be trained in all that is necessary by their mother, and rush into their destiny requirements only slightly prepared. Parker is an exception to this rule, and would not have been an exception had Raven not dissolved the Storybook’s power. Opinions on Destiny Parker is near obsessed with his destiny, and yearns for it more than anything. He's slowly in the process of learning about the rest of his family - the father he never knew, the brothers that were gone before his time, and the sister that's abroad -, and wants to honour them and their deaths, and make sure whatever life they lived, it was "worth it, and for a greater cause". As a very Godly and pious person, he strives to attain the classic purity of the traditional Sir Perceval. He thinks of his destiny as his God-given duty and must follow it in the most seeming way possible, and after aimless years of hunting in the woods, is glad to have a life purpose. The Rebel Movement, therefore, is something that is a little upsetting for him, but not too much of a bother. Whatever happens, Parker believes, deus vult. Everything will fall in place, and as long as he is doing his best in whatever situation he has been thrown in, it is enough. Parallels *Parker was raised in the same way, with the same backstory as Sir Perceval was. *His favourite food is apparently Mass wafers. **A reference to the Fisher King part of the story, in which the Grail Perceval observes contains what looks like Mass wafers. *I have used the phrase 'deus vult' a few times. This is a direct reference to the Crusades, and in particular, the video game Crusader Kings and the internet meme. **In the Middle English Arthurian Romance, Sir Perceval of Galles, Perceval dies fighting in the Crusades. *Perceval proves his worth to King Arthur by killing a troubling, rogue knight and taking that knight's vermillion armour. **Parker wears green, because he hasn't earnt the colour of "red", or other knights' respect yet. Trivia *Parker Valiant was a play on the name Perceval. **P-Val, if it weren’t obvious. *Parker is an Old English name meaning park keeper. A nod to his upbringing and his hobby of rangering. **Valiant is also an adjective frequently associated with knights. *The name on Parker’s birth certificate is Parker le Gallois, or “Parker the Welshman”. However, he uses the Valiant surname in the context of Ever After High. *Zena alternates between spelling Percival as “Percival” and “Perceval”. Although Percival is the most common anglicisation, both spellings are commonly used. Quotes TBA Category:Characters Category:Males Category:Zena's OCs Category:Royals Category:Arthurian Legend Category:Knights Category:Welsh